The Memory Remains
by Roksiel
Summary: Izaya's biggest regret is not having said "I love you" sooner.
1. Putting the Dog to Sleep

BANG!

The sound of the gun going off pierced Izaya's heart in the same manner the bullet tore through Shizuo's skull and splattered the man's brains all over the wall behind them, painting a canvas of death and shattered dreams in a crimson that put Izaya's eye color to shame. It took a single bullet to put Ikebukuro's strongest down once and for all, and the only thing Izaya could think of as his eyes roamed over the bloody scene before him was that it couldn't be happening because Shizuo was a beast and beasts weren't supposed to be defeated by something so small.

"No no no no," he murmured brokenly as trembling fingers brushed against Shizuo's face that was still warm and feeling very much alive even though the monster was now gone, taking Izaya's little black heart with him and leaving him in tatters. The pain in his chest was so intense that he briefly wondered if he too had been shot, but there was no gaping hole even though his heart had been ripped out of his body along with Shizuo's life.

Seeing his beast like that hurt so much that he could hardly breathe, and yet Izaya couldn't take his eyes off the crimson liquid pouring down the wound marring Shizuo's forehead, staining the tanned face in deathly red paint and filling the still open mocha eyes that Izaya used to love so much. He no longer did now that the spark of life within them was gone, leaving behind never-ending emptiness and death. They were as hollow as the skull once encasing Shizuo's brain, the bullet taking with it not only the soft grey matter but also every thought and every memory belonging to the only person Izaya had ever truly loved.

The dam keeping his tears at bay finally broke and Izaya let out a heartwrenching sob, tears streaming down his face as he pulled Shizuo's head to his chest and ran quivering fingers through bloody bleached hair. He felt as dead on the inside as the blond he was rocking gently in his embrace while murmuring apologies for never having told him how much he loved him, and yet he was still very much alive while the two men in the room were arguing over whether to kill him or not. He knew that he should be trying to convince them to let him live, but Shizuo's blood, still so warm against his skin, was drowning his thoughts and leaving him unable to think.

BANG!

And it no longer mattered.

The bullet impacted the right side of his head and Izaya collapsed on the bed next to Shizuo, his blood now mixing with that of the man he loved. Everything went dark for a few moments, as though he'd been erased from existence, but then he heard footsteps retreating and he realized that he was still alive.

They say you see your life flash before your eyes in the last moments before death, but as he lay dying on Shizuo's bed, all Izaya could see was infinite darkness, trying to pull him in and swallow him whole. It felt as though he was swimming through molasses, sinking deeper the more he struggled as he clung to life with his teeth. The thought of no longer existing was as terrifying as the thought of spending the rest of his life without Shizuo, but the balance tipped in favor of living if only to rip to pieces with his bare hands the men who had taken away his beast.

It almost sounded nice, but it was nothing more than a dream and Izaya knew deep down inside that he would bleed to death next to Shizuo's body. He would give his last breathe and leave the world the only way he was meant to leave it: _together with Shizu-chan._

Besides, he should've already been dead, so every second of being alive was a miracle in itself; _or a curse._ He was most likely numb from shock so it didn't hurt, but the pain in his chest kept growing as the seconds ticked by, the agony of losing Shizuo increasing exponentially with every weak breathe he took as he fought to stay alive.

Now, more than ever, he wanted to tell the blond how much he loved him (even though Shizuo could no longer hear him), but he was a prisoner within his own mind and the hopelessness he felt at being denied the chance to utter those three words hurt so much that Izaya doubted he would ever be able to overcome his regret even if he would somehow manage to survive a bullet to the head.

The darkness surrounding him felt heavier, more suffocating, like it was squashing him in its choking hold in order to extinguish his existence, and Izaya realized that it was something he couldn't beat no matter how hard he fought. His own thoughts were slipping away from him, succumbing to the void of non-existence, but in the last remaining moments of his life he became aware of one thing. Everyone was equal in death: gods, men, and monsters alike.

_Shizu-chan, I love you._


	2. The Pain I See in Others

"Why?" Shinra voiced the question haunting them both. He was standing in Shizuo's room, body trembling and eyes burning with unshed tears as he took in the bloody scene before him. Some areas of the bed and of the wall behind it had been painted crimson with the blood of their friends, creating a gruesome picture of how Ikebukuro's strongest had met his demise. "I don't understand…"

Celty's shoulders shook in silent weeping, and she pressed the keys on her PDA with quivering fingers before raising it and positioning it between Shinra's eyes and the blood they were glued to.

[I'm sorry.]

Ever so gently, Shinra wrapped his arms around Celty and pulled her into a comforting embrace. "No, I'm sorry. You're already doing your best to find whoever did this."

Celty tried to pull away and shook her helmet in a display of contradicting his words, but Shinra tightened his hold around her, pulling his beloved closer to him. "It's only been four days since the attack."

_"Four days too many,"_ thought Celty as she dejectedly lowered the PDA and slumped into Shinra's arms. Words were meaningless when they were standing inside the room where the lives of their friends had been shattered in the blink of an eye, the grisly picture of splattered blood on the wall behind her iterating too much but at the same time not enough. _"Someone should clean the blood off these walls,"_ she realized, almost in a panic, _"before he wakes up."_

She would've offered to do it herself, but she remembered Kasuka hinting that it would be their last chance to take a look at the crime scene if they were hoping to find some clues and she had no doubts that Kasuka would not hesitate to repaint the walls and throw out the bed as soon as the police allowed it. The man had chosen to remain outside in the hallway, as far as possible from the room where Shizuo had been killed, and Celty couldn't blame him for not wanting to lay eyes on the place where his brother's life had come to an abrupt stop. To those who didn't know him well, it might've looked like Kasuka couldn't have cared less that his brother had been killed, but Celty could sense the grief emanating from the ever emotionless-looking Heiwajima Kasuka and it made her feel terrible for not yet finding the culprits.

A neighbor recalled two men nearly throttling him while he was entering the building, and the only thing he remembered was that both of them must've been in a fight since their faces were covered in bruises. It was frustrating for Celty to have so little to work with, especially when the list of people who wanted to harm either Shizuo or Izaya stretched for miles, but something was better than nothing and she was thankful for that little piece of information since she had nothing else to go on.

Pulling away from Shinra's warm embrace, she took one last look around the room and concluded it was time to get out of there. [While the police works on identifying the type of gun used to shoot Shizuo, I'll see if I can find someone who's willing to sell me one.]

"Oh, I see! I had no doubts that my darling Celty would find a way to pick up those wretched criminals' trail." For the first time since he received the tragic news, Shinra felt some glimmer of hope that the culprits would be apprehended before it was too late and a certain vengeful 'angel' with eyes like pools of blood would rouse from its surely temporary sleep and unleash Hell upon the city.

[I won't rest until I find them,] she vowed to Shinra, but also to Shizuo and Izaya, their best and closest friends.

"I'll do my best to help," Shinra promised and the two of them walked out of Shizuo's bedroom, hoping to never see it again.

They found Kasuka talking on the phone when they walked out of the apartment, the man nodding in response to Shinra waving before turning his attention back to the conversation while Celty went down the stairs, Shinra lagging behind her. No words were exchanged as they got on the bike and drove off, Celty making sure to take the shortest route to their destination knowing how anxious Shinra was to get there.

"Do you think he'll be okay?" Shinra asked as the two of them entered the hospital.

[I have no idea…] Celty answered honestly while she pressed the elevator button leading to the fifth floor where Izaya was lying half-dead in a hospital bed.

Ikebukuro had been their field of battle for many years, until the two former enemies had stopped trying to kill each other and accepted their feelings for one another, but their happiness was short-lived and the two of them had been mercilessly torn from each other's arms by monsters that Celty had every intention of catching and chopping to pieces.

The informant had never been her favorite person in the world (in fact, he used to be one of her least favorite), but the man had become less of a flea (as her now dead friend put it) and more of a human being after he got together with Shizuo, and Celty couldn't deny that she'd grown fond of the new Orihara Izaya who loved Heiwajima Shizuo.

As a Dullahan, she wasn't supposed to be so affected by death, but her stay in Japan had changed her way of seeing the world around her to a fundamental level and she couldn't help but grieve the death of her friend and Izaya's fate now that Shizuo was gone.

She could only imagine Izaya's reaction when the man woke up. She shuddered.

_It won't be pretty…_


	3. The Disquieting Awakening

For a few blissful seconds, when Izaya woke up, he couldn't remember much of anything. He had a splitting headache and he couldn't open his eyes, but what registered in his mind as more than just a strange sensation was the fact that he was cold and that it didn't make any sense since his Shizu-chan always kept him warm. The confusion only lasted for a few more seconds, until it all came crashing down on him and it felt as though he'd just been hit by an asteroid, the impact violent enough to almost wipe his soul out of existence.

He wished that would've been the case (a thought he would have never entertained in the past), especially when all he could see even with his eyes closed was Shizuo's blood soaking their sheets and his beloved beast lying on the bed, dead. The image had been engraved into his memory like the bullet fired into Shizuo's brain, never to be erased no matter how much he wished otherwise. Even for someone like him, who rarely allowed his emotions free reign, it was too much to handle.

The pain was worse than anything he'd ever experienced before and he didn't know how to deal with it. During such moments, when he was reminded that he too (just like Ikebukuro's strongest) was mortal and not the invincible god he wished he would've been, he despaired over the cruel existence bestowed upon him the moment he'd been conceived.

In the face of death, he was just as powerless as anyone else, and the need to escape the nightmare of reliving Shizuo's murder behind eyelids as heavy as lead made him open his eyes, not caring that it was futile when reality was much worse than anything he could've ever imagined. There, in the real world, Shizuo was already gone, but at least Izaya would be spared the torture of seeing his dying face over and over again as his brain replayed the memory like a broken record.

He had no idea how long he'd been tottering on the edge of the cliff, still alive but on the verge of slipping and falling into death's dark abyss, but he hoped that it hadn't been more than a couple of days. His memory, aside from recalling Shizuo's last moments, was still a bit hazy, but he clearly remembered that he'd been shot as well, so he raised a trembling hand to his head, quivering fingers brushing against what felt like bandages.

It was then when he heard a familiar voice and he turned his head in the direction it was coming from, eyelids fluttering in an attempt to chase away the beginning of tears and the blurriness preventing him from seeing his friend.

"—hear me?"

"Sh-Shin….ra," Izaya uttered the name in a voice that sounded too broken to belong to him.

"Yes, it's me. Wait, no, don't try to get up yet," Shinra advised, gently pushing down on his friend's shoulder in an attempt to get him back into bed. He'd been worried about a lot of things, but seeing Izaya awake, moving his limbs and speaking, was a very good sign. "Listen, you'll be okay."

A most disturbing chuckle burst forth through Izaya's dry lips, the sounds conveying the blood thirst Shinra could sense rolling off of his friend in devastating waves. Brown-red eyes, glistening with unshed tears locked with Shinra's light grey ones, and even though it felt wrong to see such a vulnerable side of Orihara Izaya, he maintained the gaze.

"Why am I not dead?" Izaya voiced the question weighing heavily on his mind as he nearly collapsed back down on the bed. _Why did Shizu-chan had to die and I got to live?_

The question made Shinra think that Izaya would've preferred to die, but all he could offer was the actual answer to the question and not something to console the man's bleeding heart. Celty was much better at that, and Shinra had no doubts that she would do everything in her power to help Izaya, be it to work harder on locating the killers or to simply offer advice or words of comfort. Sighing softly, he pulled back his hand and fixed his glasses. "The bullet penetrated your skull, but it mostly scraped along the right side of your brain before exiting. The scars won't be noticeable with your hair covering it."

Shinra's explanation registered in Izaya's mind but no feelings accompanied it. He didn't care about scars on his head when his heart was still bleeding and it felt as though his whole being was crumbling into smaller and smaller pieces, soon to reach subatomic level at the rate it was going. He feared the answer to the next question he was about to ask, and as he gathered to courage to voice it, he turned his head to the side and gripped the blanket tighter. "How long was I out?"

Shinra placed a comforting hand on Izaya's shoulder. "Nine days," he answered reluctantly, Izaya's sharp intake of breath indicating that his friend knew exactly what that meant. The man's agony at having missed his chance to say good bye to Shizuo was apparent in the way the skinny shoulder began to tremble beneath his hand and he saw it as a sign telling him to get out of there and give Izaya some privacy. "I'll give you a few minutes before I send the doctor in."

Izaya nodded, still not looking at Shinra, and waited until the man walked out of the room and closed the door behind him before finally allowing the tears gathering in his eyes to fall freely down his cheeks, all of them shed for the only person Izaya had ever truly loved. Hatred unlike anything he'd experience before was the only thing he felt besides anguish, and even though the temptation to get up and hunt the monsters who took Shizuo away from him was difficult to reign in, the bullet hitting his brain hadn't made him stupid enough to believe that he was in any shape to be hunting animals no matter how much they deserved to be put down.

Besides, he had no doubts that Celty was already on it, with Shiki most likely involved in the search. If he knew anything about the Awakusu-Kai Executive it was that the man would seek to punish whoever had tried to take out his most valuable informant. What the two of them didn't know was that Shizuo had been the target and that Izaya just happened to be there at the wrong time, though he couldn't blame anyone if they believed Shizuo had gotten killed because of him. He appreciated their effort, but he doubted they could find those two men.

What Izaya needed to do now was to glue himself back together, get out of there as soon as possible and then use all the resources he had at his disposal to find Shizuo's killers. He had no doubts that he would succeed, and when he finally found them, no one could stop him from making them pay.

_As slowly and painfully as possible…_


End file.
